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Crow Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac

Not perfect and pretty much straight on stage with no rehearsal (I had never played with the drummer until this song) due to some travel issues but was a thrill to play this with Al Anderson who played on the original. In Wrocław, Poland last week:

That's a bit rubbish. Fair enough if it'd been £300 but nearly £900 for that's a joke. It looks like a generic budget P type (check out the glued-on maple board) with Tbird pickups bodged on - I guarantee the cheap-looking surrounds are to cover chopped-out routing for the bridge unit, & the original P cutout on the pickguard. The headstock sticker's the most custom thing on offer. I think it's be a fun & quite straightforward project to build a far more accurate replica of Pino's than this thing. I bet you could do it for a good bit less too - including getting the body properly routed & a pickguard made.

My Mesa D800 has recently started making a lot of noise when using it and after tying to troubleshoot, I'm in need of some advice. With nothing plugged into the input the amp is fine. From there I've plugged in a few different basses to see how I reacted and things went as follows: Dual humbucker bass - no noise when using humbuckers, lots of buzzing when coil split, more than would be expected of single coils. Passive Jazz bass V with Nordstrand Hum cancelling pickups - no noise when pickups blended at 50/50, loud buzzing when blended anywhere other than dead centre. Shuker PJ5 - Some noise when P pickup isolated, lots of buzzing when introducing any bridge pickup at all. Aguilar hum cancelling bridge pickup, and is the same in both active and passive settings. The same noise has happened on a few gigs now and at home so I've ruled the power source. It seems what I'd expect of 60hz hum, but no idea why it's happening on my basses with him cancelling pickups. It's also a new thing that hasn't been present in the past. I've attached a shirt video of the sound. Any ideas as to what could be causing it, or anything I can do to reduce the noise as currently it's not workable on a gig? Any help is much appreciated! PXL_20250508_100229058.mp4

I had a stand with a few issues, so my experience may be helpful. The pivot pins that hold the lifting mechanism in place are not rivets. One end is a short pin that is a friction fit in the larger pin, which is hollow. I had the small in fall out and disappear. The large pin slid back and this allowed one of the 'lifters' to disengage and stop working. The fix is: First cgeck the srew holding the lifting tab on isn't loose (easy fix). If a pin is loose already skip this step. Use a small flathead screwdriver to prise off the end of a pin, can be either but lower pin makes the next steps easier. Push out the loose pin completely. Push the head down against the spring, and looking in the holes at the back of the head you should see a metal loop and a moving pin on the back end of the lifter. By pushing the head forward, you will be able to jiggle the pin(s) on the lifter(s) into the loop(s) without too much difficulty. The skill is keeping one engaged whilst fitting the other. To put the long pin back in, push the head down and use a small screwdriver in the gap to lift the arm so the hole aligns and you can get the pin right through. Re-insert the small pin in the far end of the long pin. A drop of low strength retainer would be a good idea and not prevent future repairs. My small pin disappeared weeks ago so I used a drop of superglue on the end of the long pin. If the pin is completely missing you could make one from stout wire bent over at the ends so it can't scratch your lovely bass. Sorry if this makes a relatively simple task sound complex, but it's hard to see how the mechanism works. I hope this helps keep otherwise ok stands working.

The same reason why far too many define the performance of an amp by watts. 😉

EB Cobalt user here. Love them, but I had one set that I used for a long time that was getting a bit rusty around the bridge. Did not happen to my next set which I have for like a year now on my Ibanez (yeah, I know)... Not as bright any more of course but still can make the Prec pickup growl quite a bit!

Me too. A Vox Foundation. Worst bass sound in the world, by miles.

It used to be very noticeable when playing in pits, and when recording. I don't think I've ever noticed it in pub bands. Sometimes you can become sensitised to things, once you hear them, you can never unhear them...

On the bee string. Chortle.

Owl around the world - Oasis

The big test will be my Zoom B2 pedal and TC Helicon Mic Mechanic 2. Both are digital pedals and they can cause more problems than analogue pedals as the clock noise is often left on the power rails. I have had to use the MM2 with batteries for a while to cut down the number of power supplies. My cheapo 10 way made them sing but not in a good way.

I own two Aston Elements, and they're absolutely amazing. Wouldn't say they'd replace a small condenser mic though. If you're after bargainous, the Behringer B-5s are reasonably priced and offer multiple pickup patterns via interchangeable capsules. I own a pair of those as well. To be perfectly honest, if you put a gun to my head and forced me to make a choice between them I'd pick the Elements as their noise floor is incredibly low and the vocal sound is superb, but horses for courses and all that: the different pickup patterns on the B-5s can come in real handy.

They were made by Status, not TE. Mark Gooday created the design with Rob Green but Status produced them and manufactured them, hence why you were able to buy the spare parts via the Status website for a significant period of time. They were originally a brighter white but as with most white basses, it's in its ivory/cream phase but then it is almost 30 years old. Nice catch!

That's a very good call, well spotted! Lovely bass at a very reasonable price. If I had the spare cash I'd be in there.

No love for 18" cabs? I used to have one when I started out. Provably why I went to a pair of 2x12 cabs decades before most bassists!

But the size and number of drivers in a cab are only part of the overall sound of the cab. Every cab I have ever owned has sounded different. Even when I've owned cabs by different manufacturers that had the same combination of drivers in them they sounded very different. Not surprising really considering that the cabs were all different sizes and the drivers while being the same diameter had different technical specifications. So why do we keep defining the sound of a cab by the number and size of drivers it contains?

Congratulations. Will be interesting how they will put it to use. Any clues on the new build?